What you need to know about Yubl, the ‘immediate’ social network

Yubl, a brand new mobile social messaging platform, launched in the UK today. Pronounced like “bubble”, Yubl wants you to talk to friends in real time using an array of special features, buttons and stickers.

Started by Psygnosis co-founder Jonathan Ellis, who developed the first PlayStation, its roots are firmly in the fun side of communication technology. Ellis states that his intent wasn’t to gamify messaging, but to “bring users closer to the people and things they love”.

Yubl combines many of the best features from existing social media platforms. Like Line or WhatsApp, you can connect with your friends in groups, share pictures and 15-second video. And like Snapchat, you can put stickers over your pics and search for brands to follow.

However, its uniqueness lies is in its functional buttons and instant peer-to-peer connectivity. At launch, Yubl will be debuting 5 buttons: Vote, Link, Whereabouts, Pinpoint and the custom Count button.

Vote will allow you to post a picture or video with a question, letting other people select one of two options.

Link lets you add your links to your content – useful for us.

Whereabouts lets you share your location on a map with friends, and updates in real time.

Pinpoint lets you give a particular address that people can then register to by tapping on the icon. Helpful for when you and your friends need to choose a meetup point.

Lastly is the Count button, a single “number count” which works like the Vote button but with only one option.

Yubl plans on expanding its features as its audience grows, so getting in early will give you the chance to help shape its future.

We liked it so much that we decided to become a launch partner, although it is only available to the UK for now. However Yubl is keen to stress that it will be launching throughout Europe in a few weeks, and that it will launch in the US “before the end of 2016”.